From: Lüneburg / GAPPP (2018), after Turner.
Originally for: explaining why some participants engage immediately and others never do.
What it says
People who already play an instrument engage faster with an instrument-based work, because they arrive carrying knowledge they cannot articulate. Lüneburg treats this as a precondition of engagement, not a bonus.
Why it matters here
This is the theoretical footing under my strongest recurring pull. When I hand someone a game controller, I am not giving them an input device — I am loading their tacit knowledge into the work as a component. They already know the thumbstick moves them, that the triggers do something forceful, that they are probably being scored.
Which reframes an anxiety I had been carrying. “People already know what a controller is” felt like a limitation. In Lüneburg’s terms it is the mechanism.
How it holds up on my work
Fitted, and it held — see controller-as-cultural-symbol.
The stress point: tacit knowledge is unevenly distributed. Everyone in the room has held a rope; not everyone has held a DualShock. A controller-based work quietly selects its audience, and I do not yet know whether that is a flaw to design around or a fact to make part of the subject.